Being referred to as a sheep is not a compliment. Sheep, by nature, are not the smartest of creatures and don’t fare well without oversight and direction.
Notice the first thing the Shepherd does in Psalm 23—he makes us lie down in green pastures. Typically, we don’t like to be made to do anything. Yet our good God will prompt us to do a lot of things. He’s not looking for control or power in our lives. He’s seeking to lead us to what truly satisfies.
Freedom from our giants begins with humility before God. Daily we come to him and admit we need his help. We breathe out our inability and breathe in his all-sufficiency. We connect the pathways of our lives to his voice and ask him to steer us through the valley to the other side.
This truth can be illustrated through a journey that I took some years ago with my friend Marc when we set out to scale the Matterhorn. Though we had no experience in mountaineering, nor knowledge that the mountain of our choosing was one of the deadliest climbs out there, we arrived in the little village of Zermatt, Switzerland, brimming with confidence. Privately, I knew I had not crushed our training regimen, but somehow things always seemed to work out for me, so I assumed that would be the case this time. That is until I came face-to-face with the mountain. How, I thought, are we possibly going to get up that thing?
After a week of altitude acclimatization and further training, we were cleared by the Swiss mountaineering guides to proceed. I was still unsettled, except that our training guide kept saying, “Don’t worry. It’s a ‘walk up.’ We’ll go super slow, and all you need to do is put one foot in front of the other.”
I took comfort in those words and kept repeating them to myself.
Jesus defeated our giants with one fatal blow on the cross. He destroyed their power as he blasted out of the grip of death. The way we walk in that freedom is by believing each day that he will lead us as we put one foot in front of the other. Most times in our lives the power is not in a massive leap but in the succession of a thousand tiny steps.
It is not always easy to take a tiny step with your Shepherd. Jesus has defeated your giants, but they still call your name along the journey. Join us tomorrow as we discuss how to silence the voice of your giants by leaning into the voice of your Shepherd.
